


Lost Sight of Anthony

by K9Lasko



Category: NCIS
Genre: Dark, Episode: s13e24 Family First, F/M, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-18
Updated: 2016-10-18
Packaged: 2018-08-23 03:35:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8312446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/K9Lasko/pseuds/K9Lasko
Summary: "We cannot lose sight of Anthony and the enormity of what he's going through." - DuckyAn alternative look at S13E24 "Family First."DARK DARK DARK.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Please note that this little story is DARK. It contains suicide of a main character. It's been sitting on my hard drive since "Family First" aired. And maybe it should've stayed there, but I feel like it's a valid "alternative take" on the episode. (I prefer the route he actually took, in canon. In case anybody is wondering...) A part of this was themed off of the recent depression that Tony seemed to be going through the past few seasons. He never really seemed to recover from that. (Plus, that quote by Ducky was perhaps the most sensitive, on-point thing said by anybody during the entire episode.)

"We cannot lose sight of Anthony and the enormity of what he's going through."  
-Ducky

 

 

 

Nobody knew what he was planning to do, and if they had, they would’ve done something about it. They would’ve approached things differently. Would’ve stopped to consider what was best for him and what was best for the child, and that the brain Tony was thinking with and making decisions with wasn’t behaving calmly or rationally.

 

Nobody knew what he was planning to do, because he knew how to hideaway – from himself and from others and from what should be real and the whole entire weight of the situation. He knew how to be “OK” and “fine” and “happy.” 

 

When Tim and Abby told him the news, something sprung loose in his head. Ziva was dead. She was dead. He hadn’t seen her in years, yet in that moment, it’s like he could see her again, and there she was, standing right there beside them all. Out of reach, as always. 

 

“Do we know for sure she’s dead? We don’t know for sure.”

 

And then later, too soon, he looked into his child’s eyes, and the shock was complete. She’d never told him. She’d kept this from him. Everything. If he had known… but she’d never told him. She had chosen to bear this secret, and for what? Did he not deserve his own child?

 

Maybe not. Maybe not.

 

And that came to collide with the lurking mental illness he’d tried so hard to assuage. It clawed at him and laughed. Said, _told you so, told you so, you miserable, worthless fuck._

 

Carefully, he put himself together, piece by piece. People were worried about him. He knew that. He hugged and smiled at his friends – a wistful kind of teary-eyed madness. He kept his bearings, no matter the swirling surreality around him. His daughter watched him closely with a gaze full of neutral curiosity, which, he’s led to believe, was common in two-year-olds. She doesn’t understand, but she doesn’t have to. She doesn’t know him, but she doesn’t have to. She was never meant to know him.

 

Suddenly, they were each other’s everything, and suddenly, he was afraid of the decisions he might make.

 

The decisions he would make.

 

Ziva couldn’t be dead, could she? There had to be more. There was no proof, and all he had to go on was the word of Mossad, and there was no love lost there. They weren’t above deception and subterfuge. So what if she wasn’t dead? What if she was out here?

 

What if she needed to be found? She needed to be found. She deserved to be found.

 

**

 

It was odd, this descent. It felt so wrong and so right, all of it at once. He looked at his friends, looked into their eyes and basked in that familiar warmth. But he knew that they all were blind. Nobody more-so than himself.

 

Why couldn't they find anything? A shard of bone, burnt flesh, ashes, scorched teeth, ANYTHING to close this book, turn the page, put it away on the shelf and forget it had ever been written or printed or loved.

 

There was agony in knowing nothing, and then realizing that it would be just like Ziva to somehow escape this fate. She'd lied about Tali -- lie of omission, but a lie none-the-less. She could have lied about this as well, if she was still owned by Mossad. Bought and paid for like the machine they thought she was.

 

Who was she running from? Was she running from him?

 

He thought, vaguely, of that night in Israel, the stupidity of their haste. The feeling of it, something he’d lent his soul to. Something he’d wanted for forever. And after, Ziva kissed him on the forehead — sweet, affectionate. Nothing but a quick fuck.

 

Tony knew he’d been had, and she was the master. It was her eyes that said it. _I fucked you. Isn’t that enough for you?_

 

Again, he caught his daughter's eyes, so wide with benevolent wonder.

 

He found himself saying, "Don't you worry, little girl," and it sounded so foreign from his mouth, a whole other language, but also so trite. "Don't you worry.”

 

**

 

It was McGee who called Gibbs and said, rather nervously, “I can’t get a hold of Tony.”

 

“Maybe he’s busy.”

 

“No. I can’t get a hold of him. _Really.”_

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“I mean I’ve been calling and calling. Straight to voicemail.”

 

“Did you go to his place?”

 

“Yeah. Senior was there. Said he hadn’t seen him.”

 

“What about Tali?”

 

“She wasn’t there.”

 

“She wasn’t there?” Gibbs repeats. “What about her stuff?”

 

“Gone, what little she had. Boss…”

 

Gibbs stayed quiet.

 

“Where would he have gone with her?”

 

“Did you ask everybody else?”

 

“Who?” McGee asked, stupidly.

 

“Palmer, Abby, Ellie, anybody, everybody?”

 

“Everybody said he’d gone home. To see Tali.”

 

“Ping the phone.”

 

“I did…” McGee hesitated.

 

“Where’s it pinging?”

 

“A motel.” McGee’s breathing picked up. “I think I fucked up, boss. He said something. He said something to me. Why didn’t it clue me in? Why did I leave him like that?”

 

**

 

The TV was on, and the toddler bounced her hands up and down as she stared at it. Such joy and hope on that face, with the flashes of blue light dancing around the room. She’d been carefully strapped into her car seat stroller combo, stuffed animal tucked beside her. Her bag sat packed and ready to go beside a wheel.

 

She’d been left there on purpose. She grinned at the near strangers.

 

McGee looked Gibbs’ way. “You think he left her alone here? Why would he do that?”

 

“No. Car’s parked in the lot,” Gibbs said. “Where would he go?”

 

“On a walk?” Tim suggested, hopefull.

 

Gibbs’ face had long gone grim and shadowy. “No, Tim. He left her here for us to find.” His eyes lingered on the corner of a piece of paper sticking from the overstuffed bag. He didn’t bother reaching for it. “He’s here, too.”

 

McGee followed Gibbs’ eyes and grabbed the paper. He recognized the handwriting immediately.

 

**Look out for her. Thank you.**

 

“Boss?”

 

But Gibbs was already gazing toward the bathroom, where the fan was gently humming and light peeked out from beneath the heavy door. “Stay with her,” he instructed.

 

Tony’s kid went on bouncing her hands. She smiled up at them, head cocked. “Bam,” she said. 

 

As Gibbs walked toward that bathroom, Tim knelt down beside Tali and asked, “What’s that?”

 

She smiled again. She looked so much like Tony, and so much like Ziva. He felt oddly unsettled by it. “Bam,” she repeated. “Bam.”

 

“McGee!” Gibbs yelled from the bathroom.

 

And it was weird how Tim instantly knew. He didn’t want to know. He kept an aching smile stuck to his face as he continued to looked into the eyes of this child. How much violence had she already been an unwitting party of? Her eyes were beautiful, and he felt, if he tried hard enough and wished long enough, he could tip right into them and remain in that one moment of innocence.

 

“Get over here and help me, dammit!” Gibbs hollered.

 

Tim reacted by rote, and he smelled it, now that Gibbs had thrown open the bathroom door. And he saw what he’d never be able to un-see. Gibbs knelt there, beside where Tony sat on the closed toilet seat, slumped over and halfway falling into the bathtub. And Gibbs hands were soaked in blood as he attempted to replace a piece of Tony’s head. Like a puzzle, he was shoving bits of skull back together, oblivious to the own horror he was creating. 

 

The fan ran above them, a dull roar, and Gibbs seemed in the midst of a metamorphosis. “God dammit, McGee, help me!”

 

He could only guess that Tony was dead, had to be with his head… like that. McGee shut himself off, like an over-heating computer, the emergency switch had been engaged. He ignored Gibbs as he reached over and calmly removed the gun from Tony’s two lax hands. They were still warm.

 

While Gibbs remained locked in this worthless endeavor, McGee struggled to figure out what the next step should be, if there was a next step.

 

“Ah, dammit. Dammit,” Gibbs was saying. “Ah, god. Ah, fuck.” He then sat back, giving up fixing what was spread all over that bathroom floor. He put his hands to his head, heedless of the blood getting in his hair, and he just stared at Tony. Then he grabbed Tony by the chin, shook him a bit. “Wake up. _Wake up.”_

 

McGee tugged at the back of Gibbs’ shirt — a bold move for him. “Stop it. We have to go. We have to go, boss.”

 

But Gibbs grabbed Tony’s face even harder, shook his dead body stronger. “THAT’S AN ORDER.”

 

The child abandoned outside screamed for attention.

 

“Stop!” McGee screamed, hands still full of Gibbs’ shirt. “Please just stop!”

 

Gently, he let go of Tony. Gently, he touched his hair, matted by blood. He studied where the bullet had been aimed. Mostly quick. Mostly painless. If messy, gruesome. Inconvenient and brutal.

 

McGee was somewhere else, vomiting.

 

“Did it right,” Gibbs said quietly. “You always did it right.”


End file.
